What is virtualization?

Virtualization concept came in 1960. It was brought by IBM for the Mainframe server to fully utilize hardware resources by logical partitioning them in virtual machine (VM). In 1980’s and 1990’s era, we almost forgot this technology due to rise of desktop and client server computing.
After this era we jumped on distributed computing technology. Company started to use multiple servers to execute their application. Each server took extra space and used more power and cooling which gave rise to extra expenditure cost to run application.
To overcome all this extra expenditure company started to explore virtualization. VM ware is one of the leading companies which provide virtualization. Virtualization is old technology in new box with more powerful resources and options.
Virtualization is the partitioning of not only mainframe server but any physical server into multiple virtual servers. It gives organization maximum utilization of hardware with same CAPEX (ongoing capital expenditure) and OPEX (ongoing Operational expenditure). Each server acts like a real physical server that can run on operating system with just like physical server. Now companies are partitioning their physical server into multiple virtual servers and run their application on virtual servers with same resources and less expenditure.

1.        Hardware virtualization – Hardware virtualization allow us to run different OS (Operating Server) and different servers simultaneously on the same hardware. 
2.        Desktop virtualization – Desktop virtualization allow us to run different desktop for different users simultaneously on the same hardware.
3.        Storage virtualization – Storage virtualization is the pooling of physical storage from multiple network devices on the same hardware.